Don. Yer dead.

He was hunched over the small pocket watch on his counter as I peered into the store through the dusty window. The dingaling of the old door chime as I walked in broke his concentration. His hands moved so smoothly as he covered his work with a dark cloth. He appeared to be blinking to reset his eyesight to give me a visual once over. Running his hand over his grey hair, he stood up and addressed me.

His voice chipped away at the air in a staggered tone, “So you finally made it.” He knew who I was, there was no need to play games. I was there to kill him. The hunt was over. Seeing the man behind the legend had me curious as to how he had stayed hidden for so long. But he wasn’t hidden anymore. Here he was standing before me. Of all the stories I had heard about him, he was much thinner and older than I expected. I tried not to smirk as I spoke the line I had rehearsed all these years, “Don. Yer dead.”

“Straight to the point. I admire that.” He replied, not sounding as decrepit as he did before. And with a quick gesture of his wrist the room fell dark and I could hear all of the locks to the doors and windows bolt shut. My concentration remained steadfast and directed towards him. I only had one shot at this and I wasn’t going to screw it up. My gaze never faltered as the skinny man before me began to morph into a giant gargoyle type creature. Giant leathery wings sprouted from his back bringing more darkeness into the room. His hands were distorting into something that resembled both eagle talons and cat claws.

I could tell his head and face were changing, but because of his wings, I only could see a slight silhouette of his not-so-human features. As I watched him transform, his elephant-like arm swung towards me.

Szzzrrrrrackkkk

Thuwunk

His arm fell to the floor. He was fast, but I was faster. The copper lightning barrel I had strapped to my back was now in my hands charging for a second round. He definitely wasn’t going to be an easy adversary. I was going to have to slice him up piece by piece. But that’s what I do. My job is to track down and prevent creatures from island hopping through dimensional portals.

Don has been one step ahead of me for many years now. He damaged his inter-dimensional transportation device a few hundred years ago. He almost had it working again. It was sending off a faint signal that most would have missed. But when my partner came here on a hunch and never returned, I knew what had happened. I knew it was Don and I knew where to find him. I also knew the most important thing of this hunt: